Collections

This collection features one 2.25 X4" tintype photograph of an unidentified African American man dressed in a three-piece suit with a bowtie, pocket square, and derby hat with a sash perched at a stylish angle on his head. The man leans against a marble column against a plain background in a studio.

This collection contains twenty black and white photographs, approximately 9 x 7 inches, depicting African American life, presumably in a segregated area in rural Virginia. The pictures have no annotations on the back, and the photographer is unknown. The location is also unclear; however, it may be somewhere near or in Fauquier County, Virginia. This location possibility is based on a photograph that depicts several storefronts, including a beauty salon which has two names painted on the window, Green & [ ] Beauty Salon. Juline Turner and Helen Blackwell, are presumably the proprietors of the salon.

This collection contains a panoramic photograph depicting the graduating class of Army Nurses Basic Course, No. 2, Third Platoon, photographed at the Quarter Master School, Camp Lee, Virginia, on April 10, 1945. The photograph shows 52 white female students and six male students arranged in three rows, flanked by five male officers. The women wear uniforms with ties, caps, and badges. Captioned text appears at the bottom center of the image, stating "Army Nurses Basic Course No 2 The QM School Camp Lee, Va., 10 April 1945 Third Platoon." The photograph was captured during the final months of World War II. The Quarter Master school had recently relocated from Schuykill, New York, to Camp Lee, Virginia, as part of an expansion of its operations during the war. By April 1945, over 57,000 women were serving in the US Army Nurse Corps. The photograph was taken from DeSouza Studio based in Petersburg, VA.

This collection contains six handwritten notebooks and a workbook outlining botanic observations of Bessie M. Rhoades, an orphan at the Bethany Orphanage in Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania. The collection highlights the study of science by a female student at the turn of the twentieth century.It is a personal archive detailing life inside an American orphanage during a pivotal moment in the history of child advocacy.The education provided by an orphanage could give students academic opportunities beyond their origins.

This collection contains ninety-eight photographs of African American children and families at home and play from about the 1950s to the 1990s. Measurements range from 6" X 4" to 2" X 2" inches and are in color and black and white. Several subjects recur throughout the archive. All are unidentified; only three have any annotations on the back. The photographed figures, primarily children but some family shots included, are captured within their homes or playing outside. Activities include playing, swimming, posing, and celebrating holidays and special occasions.

This collection contains thirty-one photographs of young Black women in Chicago in 1940s-1950s.

This collection contains nine press photographs from Hiroshima and a signed type script from Thomas W. Ferebee, a bombardier of the first atomic bomb. Six of the press photos of Hiroshima are aerial views before and after the nuclear bomb, two are on-the-ground shots of buildings and buses destroyed, and one photograph of United States General MacArthur accepting the Japanese surrender in September 1945. Press captions are taped or glued to the back for all but one image. The typescript, dated August 7th, details the dropping of the bomb and its aftermath in Hiroshima.

This collection contains the photograph album of Ernest Butler, a United States Army soldier who served in Germany during the Second World War. Butler was among the one million African American men and women who served during the war.

This collection contains one paper vellum-bound, handwritten mathematical notebook dated from 1797 to 1799 belonging to G. Firth, a student who attended Butterwick School in the county of Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. The notebook contains eighty-five handwritten pages of calculations and notes. Girth divided the notebook into the following headings: the "Mensuration of Surfaces," "Mensuration of Solids," "Timber Measuring," and "Vaulted and Arched Roofs," written in large calligraphy. Beneath these titles are definitions, rules, problems, and calculations. Some include detailed, finely drawn geometric, three-dimensional diagrams. Tipped in at the end of the book is a hand-colored drawing of a pink flower.

This collection features seventeen merit reward cards given to girls and women in the late nineteenth century. These cards are printed on one side and have "Reward of Merit" printed at the top, accompanied by a decorative illustration, the handwritten student's name, and the teacher's signature. Six cards are addressed to Martha Warren, three to Nelly Whitenack, two to Florence Pomery, and other cards are addressed to presented to Cynthia Williams, Elizabeth Brookholder, Ida Meckly, Beatie Allen, and Ella Solm. Another card is illegible except for the first name Electa. Two of the cards are dated. The cards vary in illustration and typography.